


Enough

by Big_Edies_Sun_Hat



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Awake The Snake, Cuddling & Snuggling, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Morning After, lockdown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25025494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_Edies_Sun_Hat/pseuds/Big_Edies_Sun_Hat
Summary: A little bit of softness and fluff after the "Lockdown" video.“… and after all there were only so many cakes in the Beranbaum book, so I went out again. Passing unseen and so forth. I know what we said about miracles but I had to, and really, I don’t suppose I made such a difference that they would see, I’m afraid, but in any case—And then of course there was the general sorrow and heaviness. I mean I couldn’t spread good cheer personally, although I did take time to work on my card force—remind me to show you—but I tried to create a sort of generalized sense of wellbeing in the area. Mental strength, of course. Keeping calm, carrying on. And then of course I did go on baking, so as to give away bread, but … is it enough, do you think?”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 62





	Enough

It wasn’t enough. That was the first lesson of being human: it was never enough, what he did. From the first moment Aziraphale had stepped into a muddy village on the edge of the Euphrates in a clean linen robe with golden leather sandals and said “Hello, good people, I am but a stranger seeking shelter for the evening,” he had never quite gotten it right.

Years of diligent study followed, but the only thing that worked was once they’d sorted out building proper cities. In cities, it was all right to be a stranger _and_ a bit strange at the same time—that was dangerous business in villages or in the countryside. Aziraphale could make himself at home in a city, at least in a way, for a while; and as he came to know the customs, he could get better at humaning.

And he had. Year by year, outfit by outfit, book by book, he had managed it. People thought he was eccentric, silly, stuffy, but they thought he was a _person_ , and he worked hard at that. He always had.

Then the world had ended.

_July 2020_

“Is it enough, do you think?”

“Is what enough?” said Crowley.

Aziraphale had been chattering for five minutes without a breath, from the moment he had hung his jacket on the hook behind Crowley’s door. There was a pile of mail on Crowley’s desk, and Aziraphale had clearly seen that his own letters were in it,[1] quite unopened, so, unbidden, he began to talk.

“… and after all there were only so many cakes in the Beranbaum book, so I went out again. Passing unseen and so forth. I know what we said about miracles but I _had_ to, and really, I don’t suppose I made such a difference that _they_ would see, I’m afraid, but in any case—And then of course there was the general sorrow and heaviness. I mean I couldn’t spread good cheer _personally_ , although I _did_ take time to work on my card force—remind me to show you—but I tried to create a sort of generalized sense of wellbeing in the area. Mental strength, of course. Keeping calm, carrying on. And then of course I did go on baking, so as to give away bread, but … is it enough, do you think?”

Crowley’s face had not moved during any of this. Aziraphale was used to this slack-jawed look from people who listened to him for very long.

“Is what enough?” he said. “All that?”

Crowley rubbed his scalp and stared vaguely towards the window, pulling locks of his hair straight. It was jaw-length now, at least insofar as it was lying down; he did not appear to have brushed his hair since he woke up.

“You know what, angel,” he said, “what if it’s not?”

He turned his gaze on Aziraphale. He had no glasses now; his eyes were still gentle with sleep.

“What if it can’t be? What if you can’t do much more than anyone else out there?”

With a sad, soft smile, Crowley stepped closer, quiet in his bare snakeskin feet.

“Would that be so bad?” he said.

He was very close now. Aziraphale inhaled sharply. Crowley’s breath was bright with mint, and the scent of him was rich with the intangible: skin, hair, woodsmoke, dark orange. The two of them might have been forehead to forehead, except for a paper bag that Aziraphale held to his chest.

“What’s in there?” said Crowley.

Aziraphale felt the heat rising to his cheeks.

“Macarons,” he said. “Praline with cocoa. And an Albariño. I, I did want to show you what I was working on—I know, um, after we spoke, I was awfully short with you but I—”

“Stay.”

He spoke in a low, dark voice. Aziraphale’s breath hitched in his throat.

This was what he had been afraid of for months, afraid of and burning for; what he had struggled with himself over, in fear of his body and his fate and his God and his own unfailing ability to get things wrong and how soon Crowley would surely get bored of having a shy awkward angel in his bed and then how he’d have to face eternity alone.

Still, after all, none of that had happened _yet_ , and Aziraphale had had quite enough time alone this year already, and he did not want to bear another minute of that time, not a single further second of sourdough or comfort-reads or card-trick or attempts at helping, without Crowley.

“Law’s changed, hasn’t it?” said Crowley. “Stay as long as you like.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “Yes, of course.”

And he kissed Crowley then—simple and quick, the plain brief kiss of someone who has come home—and stepped past him to set the paper bag in the kitchen.

_The next morning_

The amazing thing was what was not amazing. Nothing had stopped. Nothing had exploded. Nothing had changed. Water flowed through the pipes in the wall on its way to the bath of a stranger. Outside and below in the street, there was still the vague roar of faraway traffic, distant honks of indignation. A moth batted its wings at the windowsill. The world was the world was the world and he, Aziraphale, had a lover, and his lover was Crowley, and there was room in the world for that, the same room there always had been, this same room, waiting and waiting and waiting for them to open the doors and to come inside.

As Crowley, barely awake, slid his hand into Aziraphale’s chest hair and held it there, feeling the pulse beneath his sternum, Aziraphale had said: “What can I do for you?”

Crowley stared up at him, at first uncomprehending; then he smiled, alight with a joy like sunrise, and said:

“Bastard. Absolute bloody nerve of you to look like that at me.”

As he spoke, Crowley raised himself up and over, pinning him neatly between his knees, and said:

“Again?” 

“Yes—” the answer was instant—“yes, but I …”

“But what?”

Crowley stopped himself and sat up on his haunches, naked and lean as a birch. The morning light was gray and grudging here, but this, as far as Aziraphale was concerned, was a sight of pure radiance. Then he realized how unflattering the light and angle must be to _him_ , and winced a little, sitting up.

“Am I supposed to—did you want me to, um, do things differently this time, or …?”

Crowley shook his head, grinning with contentment.

“Nope.” With the backs of his fingers, he trailed down the golden angel-mark along Aziraphale’s chest. “Don’t want anything else in the world. ‘Least not for a half-hour or so. Then I’ll want some coffee.”

His smile faded, but the light in his eyes did not. He cupped Aziraphale’s chin in his right hand.

“You all right? Did you want to do something else, or—”

“No! I mean, yes, I’m all right. Only—you would tell me if I was getting it wrong, wouldn’t you?”

“’Course I would. Just … you know …”

He rolled aside and down, then pressed the length of his body against Aziraphale’s, embracing him.

“I don’t think you can get it wrong,” Crowley murmured. “Not with me.”

He tucked his sharp nose into the soft angle at Aziraphale’s neck and collarbone, and murmured:

“It’s enough, all right? This here. You and me. It’s enough.”

It would be some time before they sat again at a restaurant, or haunted a park; but at home—and _home_ , for the one, was where the other was—they had their movies and their wine and their arguments, and, at last, they had each other. And that, indeed, was enough.

[1] It was easy to see Aziraphale’s letters in a pile of junk mail and bills; only his had sealing wax, which caused the pile to shift and fall aside.


End file.
